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Friday, December 13, 2013

Stereotypes and Reality: An Old Story for Indigenous Peoples

A high profile movie, Out
of the Furnace, just came out this past weekend. As so many movies and
books do, it gives a totally false representation of American Indians, in
particular the Ramapough tribe (Lenape) in the mountains of New York and New
Jersey. This is old news, of course, though this movie appears to be
particularly awful about negative stereotyping of its Indian characters

“As is the case with most films, the filmmakers conducted
research and drew upon their own personal life experiences in creating an
original screenplay, and the story and the characters are entirely fictional,”
a statement by the film’s production company, Relativity Media, stated when
confronted with the accusations of racist stereotyping. This is one of the
problems with people writing about a culture they don’t belong to and haven’t
taken the time to truly learn about. I’ve written about it before on this blog.
http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2012/04/literary-mystery-noveliststony.htmlIn
such cases, all that winds up on the page or the screen are caricatures and
falsehoods that have been perpetuated—sometimes by anthropologists, even—for decades
and centuries.

Unfortunately, this film was last weekend’s
third-highest-grossing film. Local elected officials and school personnel
stated that they have been battling pervasive discrimination and stigmatization
of Ramapough children in the surrounding community, only to have new outbreaks
occur in the wake of this movie. Because the film shows Ramapough Indians
involved in an illegal fight ring (which is totally false), they fear that groups
of teens who have seen it will drive out to the remote mountain area where the
tribe lives looking for Ramapough kids to fight. This is the problem with these
books and films that just use tribes and individual Indian characters for exoticism
and “color.” They reinforce and shore up ages-old prejudices against us and
cause very real damage with lasting effects.

The thing about this film is that it’s so bad, so blatant
and in-your-face about its stereotyping, that it makes an irrefutable example.
No person of good mind can defend this kind of thing. But other movies and
books are more subtle in their caricaturing of Indigenous cultures and therefore
harder to fight against. They diminish and denigrate the cultures they
ostensibly are representing through their own ignorance of those cultures. But
it’s like the teams that use the Indian mascot names and yet claim to be “honoring”
us. Eventually, the appropriation and exploitation of Indigenous cultures leads
to blatantly racist actions such as that taken by the owner of a Sonic drive-in
in Belton, Missouri.

I have never believed that writers should be censored from
writing about any topic they feel drawn to write about. But—and this is a huge and
important caveat—if they are going to write about another culture, they should
take the time and make the effort to try to understand that culture, preferably
through honest relationships with people who are living within that culture and
not solely through books by others who are usually perpetuating falsehoods and negative
stereotypes. And they should be ever aware of the problems of appropriation of
another’s culture. Indians are real human beings currently living in this
world. We are not extinct and therefore fair game for anything writers want to
invent. We don’t exist simply so that
some novelist or screenwriter can have an exciting, “different” subject about
which to write their books and films.

As I wrote in that earlier blog post in greater detail, this
is a thorny issue. What are your thoughts on it?

NOTE: Still can’t comment on my own blog. So I will respond
to comments by revising the blog below.

RESPONSES TO COMMENTS:

Denise, I don't believe that about the owner being a chief petty officer in the Navy and the sign referring to that. These racists always have to try to have some explanation, no matter how farfetched or lame it is. The whole thing was directed at Indigenous folks and referenced a number of denigrating stereotypes that are actually laughing references to the genocide our folks endured. Thank you for bringing this film issue to my attention. We need to stay on top of these things.

Alan P., yes, and unfortunately Cooper was nowhere near the worst. It's strange. I'm Cherokee and Choctaw and write a mystery series with a Cherokee protagonist, so I get constant emails from people who've self-published (mostly romance) novels with "hunky," "dark," "exotic" (all direct quotes form the authors' descriptions to me) heroes who are half-Navajo/Cherokee/Sioux/Apache/or just-plain-Indian, wanting me to blurb or review them. The covers always show half-naked dark, long-haired men in full warbonnets (though the Navajo and the Cherokee never wore them). Why in hell are these people who obviously know nothing about these tribes writing about them?

Diana, do you see the problem with the Boy Scouts and their Tribe of Mic-O-Say, though? All these fake Indian things diminish the cultures of real people. And then you get teams like the Chiefs, who used to use a fake Indian avatar in a warbonnet. (I'll admit I don't know if they still do or not.) It's a matter of having respect for living peoples who are not extinct, no matter how much white America tried to make that our fate or might wish we were.

Reine, I'm so sorry you heard that even from friends and family. And the master's class of therapists laughing at Indians playing chess that you mentioned on Facebook. This is so common, this idea that Indians are stupid and can't possibly learn the "sophisticated" ways of the white world. It's also a very old idea. It was prevalent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Then, the five Southeastern tribes, Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole, made the move to integrate the practices of the Anglo-Saxon invaders into their own lives and did it so successfully that they did better at it than the colonial peoples around them. The Cherokee had their own bilingual newspaper and over 90% literacy in their language after Sequoiah developed the syllabary--at a time when the literacy rate among white colonists was abysmal. This caused such rage and envy that they insisted on driving the tribes out and taking Indian farms and houses for their own. They've always chosen to underestimate us.

Diana, if the BSA is consulting local tribes, it's only been in very recent years--and I suspect is more PR than truth. The fact is that the Tribe of Mic-O-Say is much like the Indian sport mascots, which people claim are "honoring" Native Americans. It's white people taking what they think--or want to think--is Indian for their own uses. That's appropriation and exploitation of an oppressed culture for the purposes of the dominant culture. The big problem is that the people who've dealt with it think that the bits and pieces of real-but-out-of-context and totally fabricated practices are really what Indigenous cultures are like. (First of all, there is no one Indian culture/spirituality/practices. There are some overriding similarities and some tribes are related to others, but on the whole, each tribe has its own separate culture/spirituality/practices. And within the tribe there may be differences in certain areas based on gender or clan membership.)

Lil, yes, it makes a lot of us angry. I'm not surprised that you didn't learn anything about the Ramapough when you studied the Indians of New York in school. Most Americans don't learn much that's actually true about the Indigenous peoples whose lands were taken to make America. And that includes a lot of Indian kids in urban areas whose families have been away from the tribe for decades after forced relocations and have to depend on what the schools tell them about their own people.

Marma, you are so right, especially about the Dusten and Veronica Brown case. It got to where I couldn't stand to read comments on news articles about it because of the racist tone of so many of the comments. They could have been found in nineteenth century newspapers, and here they were again now. I do think we've seen a widespread appearance of racism of all types, sexism and misogyny, just about every kind of hate for anyone different, than we've publicly seen in decades. This troubles me. And yes, it's very extreme when applied to Indians. You're also right about the fact that most people don't know the truth. when I point out to folks that Hitler studied the US. genocide of its Indigenous population and modeled his Final Solution after it, they're shocked and stunned, but it's true and documented. He wrote about it in letters and journals. They also have no idea that there really were Indian cultures before the Europeans came or that there are real Indians living successful lives in American today. Yes, our poverty, alcholism, and illness rates are alarmingly high (not unusual for traumatized, colonized peoples), but the majority of us are living successfully in modern American society while trying to keep our ties to our cultures alive and thriving.

Diana, that's an excellent point. Yes, I think that, in the past until very recently, we were probably the group least likely to make any kind of public protest of this kind of misrepresentation. In part, that was because educational opportunities were often limited for Native Americans. That time is past, though. That was something that affirmative action and efforts to increase diversity in universities did for us. More of us have some college, degrees, or even graduate degrees now. Some of us are even faculty at the college level. The Idle No More movement is energizing and organizing Indians in a way that hasn't been seen since the AIM days. It's unlikely any more that this kind of thing will be allowed to pass without calling it out for what it is.

10 comments:

Thank you, thank you for stating this well and pulling together the KC "Chiefs" (I understand originally this referred to the owner's status in the navy as chief petty officer?) stereotypes with this offensive film. It is all one piece.

The KC Chiefs are named for the original owner, who was "chief" of the Tribe of Mic-O-Say, which is an honor society in Boy Scouts of America. It is a big honor to be inducted into this organization. Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribe_of_Mic-O-Say

Unfortunately, because people are not educated in the KC Chiefs' history, the attitudes (for some) have morphed into something derogatory.

Linda, thank you so much for posting this. I hadn't heard about this movie. I'll pass the information along to friends and family. I still have family who don't get it. When I got into Harvard the first thing they said was not—congratulations. It was—did you get into Harvard because you're an Indian? I expected that—and got it—when I got to Harvard. One woman in my doctoral program in Human Development and Psychology at Harvard said to me in our first study group, "How does a person like you even get into Harvard?" No one spoke up for me. That hurt, of course, but it was easy to walk away from. My family on the other hand I love, and I would like to be able to help them understand. I usually end up saying stupid things like I did that day—no I got in because I'm half Irish. I know they love me. I've been trying to get through to them for long time. I'm not going to give up on my family.

I'm sorry my post is so full of the word Harvard. It's just the way people spit it back to me as if the only way I could get in was through some kind of special admissions program for minorities, and I could not possibly be that smart. That was just a few students and a lot of relatives on my non Indian side. And that word Chief? People who put my grandfather down? That's what they called him. They tried to make us ashamed of everything and to look stupid. I didn't even put it on my school applications, because I am not status, and the last person in my family to live on rez was my grand-aunt from Oka. They just assumed.

Linda, I do understand and appreciate your argument. I think the only logo the Kansas City Chiefs use now is the stylized arrowhead with KC in it, and one could argue that some version of the arrowhead tool exists in pretty much every culture, which is probably why they're currently using it for their logo. I was searching online for older logos, but there is so much Chiefs stuff online it's hard to find the historic logos. Still, there's something odd about people with no connection to a particular ethnic or religious group using that group as their mascot (including, for example, the Fighting Irish).

I don't know enough about Tribe of Mic-o-Say to be able to speak intelligently. However, it is my understanding that that Mic-O-Say and other BSA organizations are required to work with local tribes and gain permission from local tribes before incorporating any symbols or imagery into their own organizations. If tribal leaders say no, then the BSA organization can't do it.

Would I join (if I were eligible, that is)? No. Even though I am interested in learning about other cultures, I would not be comfortable using elements of those cultures unless they were truly meaningful to me. Ten years ago, my husband and I were incredibly honored when we were invited to sit on a family bench during the Osage E-lon-Shka dances. It was an amazing thing to share this experience as a spectator. But it would not occur to me to show up uninvited or to get off the bench and join in, because these dances are incredibly important and meaningful to the Osage. It isn't my right.

This makes me so angry, especially the "romances" written about hunky Indians. What's sad for me is that this was never discussed when we were learning about the tribes of New York. I think the cynical producers of these movies think this will make money. After all we live in a different country these days. Not really!

It occurs to me that in the last year there has been a resurgence of not only stereotyping Native Americans but an actual outright expression of hatred toward us from non Indian people. I'm Cherokee and live in Oklahoma. We are still reeling from the Dusten and Veronica Brown case. I was shocked to see the comments of people about Native American's and the perception of us that so many still have. Those perceptions originated over 300 years ago. They were wrong then and they are wrong now. There are people in this country determined to keep the dishonest perceptions alive and to perpetuate the misunderstanding of Native American culture. It is extremely frustrating to continually inform people of a different history, a different story than what was written in the old history books. You would think that with all the mess we've recently experienced with our government, the attempted cover ups and the disagreements that people would begin to question the validity of the emerging stories. Our media is so extremely biased and sensation driven I can no longer believe most of what is reported. They jump first into what assumptions they make and then later we go back and find the original accounts were simply just that, assumptions. I don't think this is new, instead I think it's a continuation of early American media and government cover ups trying to protect themselves from public ridicule. If the public would take the time to investigate the issues themselves as independent thinkers I think they would be absolutely shocked and appalled at the lies they have been fed. At least I hope they would. I would hope they'd have a more ethical and moral understanding of Native American's. Of course, I'm probably just dreaming.

Do you think our Native American groups are becoming more popular subject matter (particularly in terms of negative portrayals) in book and film because it is perceived that they are less likely to be vocal about misrepresentation than other groups?

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About Me

My third novel, Every Hidden Fear, will be published by St. Martin's/Thomas Dunne Books May 5, 2014. My second novel, Every Broken Trust, was a Las Comadres National Latino Book Club selection. My first novel, Every Last Secret, won the Malice Domestic Competition and was published by St. Martin's Press/Thomas Dunne Books. I've published two books of poetry, Heart's Migration (2010 Thorpe Menn Award for Literary Excellence) and Skin Hunger. I received the Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award and the Midwest Voices and Visions Award. I'm president of the Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime. I am a long-time feminist, activist, and unashamed liberal and live with my husband, dog, cat, and about three million books.